The 2008 Yamaha Phillip Island Superbike World Championship support events saw Yamaha pick up where they left off, with a clean sweep of the Australian Supersport podium and a second placing to Jamie Stauffer in the Australian Superbike class.

The 2008 Yamaha Phillip Island Superbike World Championship support events saw Yamaha’s road racing squads pick up where they left off at the end of last season, with a clean sweep of the Australian Supersport podium and a second placing to Jamie Stauffer in the Australian Superbike class.

Stauffer, won three of the four Supersport races to take the overall victory ahead of teammates Jeremy Crowe and Bryan Staring who made his debut with the Team this weekend. The 2006 and 2007 Superbike Champion finished inside the top two of all three Australian Superbike races while teammate and younger brother Dan had his podium hopes dashed after a damaged radiator sidelined him in the opening race of the weekend.

Yamaha Racing Team Superbike

Yamaha’s Jamie Stauffer has finished second overall in the Australian Superbike support events at Phillip Island after three hard fought races where he wrestled for the number one spot with rival Shawn Giles. Stauffer, who qualified third, never placed outside the top two, winning Race 2 and finishing second in Races 1 and 3. So close was the competition that Stauffer won Race 2 by a mere 0.014 of a second.

“It was great to be able to run the bikes in a race situation before the Championship starts,” Stauffer explained, “Overall I am pretty happy with where we are, but we have a little bit of fine tuning to do between now and Eastern Creek in two weeks time.”

Teammate Dan Stauffer started from the second row of the grid but fell victim to a punctured radiator in the opening race, the result of stones thrown up when race leader Shawn Giles ran off through the infield. After some minor repairs to his YZF R1 Dan was back on track for Race 2 where he finished third. A fourth placing in Race 3 saw him finish ninth overall.

“It was disappointing start to the season with a DNF but it was just one of those freaky incidents where some rocks were thrown up when Shawn (Giles) ran across the infield and unfortunately I collected one in the radiator. The bike has shown good speed this weekend and my fitness is definitely up on last year. I am feeling good leaving here and heading to Eastern Creek.”

Yamaha Racing Team Supersport

Yamaha’s Australian Supersport Champions were the class of the field in the Supersport support races at Phillip Island this weekend. The trio of Jamie Stauffer, Jeremy Crowe and Bryan Staring dominated every session with the weekend marred only by time penalties to Crowe and Staring’s Race 2 results.

2006 Champion Jamie Stauffer won the event after qualifying on pole and winning three of the four races. Teammate Crowe who won the opening race was second overall with new Yamaha recruit Staring third.

“I didn’t get a lot of seat time on the new YZF R6 during our pre season testing so I am still finding my way with the bike a bit,” said Stauffer. This weekend has been a good shakedown and I am really pleased with the package heading into this years’ championship.”

Crowe and Staring both finished inside the top three of all four races but had their Race 2 results altered after a 10 second time penalty was imposed on the Yamaha duo for jumping the start.

“It has been a productive weekend despite the penalty in Race 2,” said Crowe “If the weekend is a sign of things to come then Brian, Jamie and I are going to be doing a lot of racing each other this year.”

Delighted with his debut results Staring acknowledged the Phillip Island event provided the ideal warm-up ahead of his Championship debut with the Yamaha Racing Team.

“This has been a great weekend,” said Staring. “The YZF R6 was fantastic and it was great to be able to get out there and race confidently. We will look to keep the momentum going as we head into Eastern Creek.”

Australian Superbike R1

1 Shawn Giles

2 Jamie Stauffer

3 Jason O’Halloran

4 Craig Coxhell

5 Glenn Allerton

DNF Daniel Stauffer

Australian Superbike R2

1 Jamie Stauffer

2 Shawn Giles

3 Dan Stauffer

4 Jason O’Halloran

5 Joshua Waters

Australian Superbike R3

1 Shawn Giles

2 Jamie Stauffer

3 Jason O’Halloran

4 Dan Stauffer

5 Craig Coxhell

Australian Superbike Event Points

1 Shawn Giles, 71pts

2 Jamie Stauffer,65pts

3 Jason O’Halloran,53pts

4 Craig Coxhell,48pts

5 Glenn Allerton,45pts

9 Dan Stauffer,35pts

SUPERSPORT

Australian Supersport R1

1 Jeremy Crowe

2 Bryan Staring

3 Jamie Stauffer

4 Wayne Maxwell

5 Scott Charlton

Australian Supersport R2

1 Jamie Stauffer

2 Wayne Maxwell

3 Scott Charlton

4 Judd Greedy

5 Jeremy Crowe

7 Bryan Staring

Australian Supersport R3

1 Jamie Stauffer

2 Jeremy Crowe

3 Bryan Staring

4 Judd Greedy

5 Scott Charlton

Australian Supersport R4

1 Jamie Stauffer

2 Bryan Staring

3 Jeremy Crowe

4 Judd Greedy

5 Wayne Maxwell

Australian Supersport Event Overall Points

1 Jamie Stauffer, 94pts

2 Jeremy Crowe, 79pts

3 Bryan Staring, 72pts

4 Wayne Maxwell, 67pts

5.Judd Greedy, 66pts